Lemonaki

Lemonaki  neemt de luisteraars mee op een muzikale reis  door Europa. Langs Griekse tavernes; liederen over de ruwe kant van het leven: drugs, de gevangenis, een zwaar bestaan… Maar ook over schoonheid: de liefde, vertellingen van duizend en één nacht.

Vanuit het Griekenland uit de vorige eeuw reizen we door het mediterrane gebied terug in de tijd, naar de Sephardische muziek. Deze stijl vindt zijn oorsprong bij de Joden die in Spanje woonden en verteld verhalen van onderdrukking, opstand, religie en natuurlijk kent ook deze stijl liederen over de liefde.

Via de Balkan met opzwepende ritmes en Roma liederen reizen we naar Noord-Europa. Oude Ballades uit Ierland en middeleeuwse vertellingen uit Nederland en Vlaanderen komen allemaal voorbij.

We zingen in onder andere Grieks, Spaans, Ladino, Turks, Engels, Macedonisch, Nederlands en Kroatisch.

We spelen in verschillende bezettingen (met als basis ons duo viool/ accordeon) afhankelijk van de wensen en locatie. We kunnen zowel binnen als buiten spelen (versterkt of onversterkt)

Luister hieronder naar ‘Mila’ en ‘Trava’. Demo opgenomen in onze thuisstudio tijdens de lockdown van 2021

Milo

Trava

 

Luister hieronder naar de live CD (onder de eerdere naam van de band) Pastiche – Exploring rebetika:

https://open.spotify.com/album/4HCiFIxzO7rU2zDizij9pP?utm_source=Facebook_SimpleMusicStories&utm_medium=sms

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Pastiche travelling to Lesvos 

In the summer of 2018 we travelled to Lesvos for five weeks: Emma van Dobben, Frank Schumm, Fieke Neijssen, Marijn Moolenaar, Dagmar Cloosterman and Gwendolynn de Boer. Before we went on this journey we’d decided the project focused on two goals: learning more about Rebetika, and working together with Connect by Music. Rebetika is a musical style that originated in the harbour cities of Greece (Athens, Thessaloniki, and Pireaus). We hoped to play together and talk about Rebetika-music with musicians from the island as well as visit different places to research the style. Connect by Music is an organisation that provides music lessons in refugee camps in Greece. At first our plan for this collaboration was to organise concerts in Moria and Kara Tepe (two of the refugee camps).

However, the project took a different direction when we arrived and there turned out to be a gap in Connect by Music’s program, which the organisation’s coordinator asked if we could fill. Initially we weren’t sure if it would be a good idea to change our plans about this project so radically, but after the first day of us visiting lessons and teaching a group in Moria, we realised this was the only logical choice.

We kept playing Rebetika, tried to study the style a little bit more, and also played some concerts. It was difficult to find out more about Rebetika. When we had been preparing this project we had already noticed it seemed impossible to find musicians. In the end we had to conclude our initial fear: Lesvos is not the best place to research Rebetika. The reason we choose to do the research specifically on this island was the cooperation with Connect by Music and this took over the project. However, we are happy that it worked out this way. We did make music with some musicians that also played Rebetika and talked to them about the style, so this gave our knowledge and way of playing a bit more depth.

 

Pastiche optreden in restaurant ‘Home’, Lesvos (read more)

We recorded a CD with Rebetika-songs in October 2018 and presented the CD in February 2019 at the Humanity House in The Hague. We combined playing Rebetika music with stories connected to our experiences at Lesvos.